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SAInS – School Action for Innovations in Science

END OF PROJECT REPORT

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SAInS – School Action for Innovations in Science

Final Project Report(December 2012 - November 2015)

Agreement No. AID 497‐ 11300001 CFDA Program Number 98.001 October 2012 - November 30, 2015

Prepared for: Education office USAID Indonesia

Prepared by Columbia University 615 West 131 Street, Room 254 New York, NY 10027 7922 ‐

and

Bogor Agricultural University Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences Jl. Meranti, Kampus IPB Dramaga Bogor 16680, Indonesia

This publication was produced for review by the United States Agency for International Development. It was prepared by the Center for Environment, Economy, and Society at Columbia University, in collaboration with the Institut Pertanian Bogor. The authors’ views expressed in this publication do not necessarily reflect the views of the United States Agency for International Development nor the United States Government.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

APPENDIX 6 : Exemplary STEM Activities from the SAInS program 4

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APPENDIX 6 : Exemplary STEM Activities from the SAInS program

Below are examples of educational activities completed by the SAInS partner schools that demonstrate mastery and application of innovative STEM instruction methods and tools in complex projects.

SMA 1 Kepanjen Economic and Environmental Potential of Landfill Waste

This project combines the following STEM pedagogies:

Science Exit Projects The school developed student projects based on the NYC Urban Advantage Exit Projects that are in place in NYC Middle Schools. The Urban Advantage program provides a structure and procedure for scientific projects, including methods for data collection, analysis, and dissemination via scientific papers and posters.

Project-Based Learning Activities that respond to a real-world issue, use authentic applied methods to collect data and explore causes, aspects, or solutions of the issue, and require students to compile, analyze, and draw conclusions from their findings.

Inquiry- and student-based learning Students were allowed to discuss and select from topics of their own interest.

Field-based activities Data collection and observations were made outside the classroom, onsite at a location that demonstrates the phenomena under research.

Interdisciplinary instruction Activities that require concepts and skills from multiple subject areas, ideally combined organically as part of larger exploration.

Applied Science Process Skills Students use scientific instruments and tools to collect and analyze data.

At SMA 1 Kepanjen, teachers embarked on an interdisciplinary project combining physics, chemistry, biology, math, and economics. The collaborating teachers from grades 10 and 11 had been trained in facilitating student science projects, including using rubrics to inform student work and assessment, and providing scaffolding activities building student ability to create a testable question, collect and analyze data, and present results and recommendations.

The teachers provided students with an overview of the science project process and explained that they would be working as a group on a large project unit, with each student providing research and results on a specific aspect of the project. The teachers presented students with a real-world problem very much in evidence locally: garbage and waste disposal. Students would conduct a field study of the local municipal landfill. Students were asked to brainstorm all the various aspects of garbage and its impacts, such as the source of garbage, methods and flow of garbage disposal, and environmental and social impacts of garbage.

The teachers then introduced students to the idea of full-circle resource use, where the discarded waste of one process might become the productive input for another process. Some examples include recycling old tires to create rubber flooring; making compost from organic food waste; or

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using the heat given off in industrial processes as energy for another process. Students learned how methane is a natural byproduct of decomposition in landfills and can be used as biogas fuel.

Having explored the general topic, students were given time to develop questions and ideas they would like to explore and research during the project. Students came to an overall consensus to study the economic output of landfills (from recycling and biogas) and new economic opportunities that might be possible using different forms of waste management. Students outlined the type of knowledge and data they would need to collect, about the biology of decomposition, the chemistry of biogas extraction, the physics and engineering involved in building landfills, and the social and economic benefits and disadvantages of garbage management methods. The students added another element they felt was important: understanding the community of scavengers that gain their living in the landfill.

Depending on their chosen focus, students developed data collection forms and survey questions to use during their field trip to the local landfill. They brought any required sampling and measurement equipment and divided themselves into groups by task and focus.

At the field site the students collected their samples and interviewed the landfill management as well as several of the scavengers working on the site. Management was questioned about the details of garbage collection and flow from household to landfill; the mechanics and economics of biogas collection and sale; and statistics about the number of employees, amount of garbage processed, amount of biogas collected and the revenues, etc. They also asked about the relationship of the scavengers to the formal employees and formal work of the landfill. Students also asked selected scavengers questions about the types of items they collect and sell, their relations with the landfill management, and the revenues they get from their work.

Armed with data and samples, each of the students developed the results and analysis needed to answer their personal topic/question of research. They wrote a scientific overview of their results, created a poster, and competed in a class-wide project competition. Teachers assessed the projects using the Urban Advantage rubrics (adapted to the Indonesian context).

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Figure 1: Landfill manager

Figure 2a: Students interviewing Landfill scavenger

Figure 2b: Students interviewing Landfill scavenger

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Figure 3: students interviewing Landfill employee

Figure 4: Landfill scavengers at work

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SMA Kornita Bogor “Picture This”: Using 3D Printers to Create Tactile Books for Blind Children

Note: this project involved SAInS program collaboration with the University of Colorado Tactile Book Project and with the Sekolah Luar Biasa (Tuna Netra) in Jakarta. SAInS team members co-authored a conference paper describing this project that will be presented at the Fablearn Europe| Digital Fabrication in Education Conference the 19th – 20th June 2016 in Preston, UK

This project combines the following STEM pedagogies:

Inquiry- and student-based learning The project was derived from the personal interests of school community members.

Project-Based Learning Activities that respond to a real-world issue, use authentic applied methods to collect data and explore causes, aspects, or solutions of the issue, and requires students to compile analyze and draw conclusions from their findings. In this case the outcome was a product designed to solve a problem for a specific audience.

Design and Engineering processes Students had to develop a product to solve a problem, taking into account the needs of the audience, the limitations and advantages of the design materials and tools, and financial, time and knowledge constraints.

3D computer modeling and printing Students used Tinkercad computer software and the 3D printer available in their FabLab to create tactile images in 2.5 and 3D.

Community based learning and character instruction Students worked with students from a local school for the blind, on a project that will help blind children directly and will also help the school to build capacity to create its own books. Kornita students learned about the education system for VI students and worked together with the VI students themselves on product design.

Metacognitive Activities Metacognitivie activities require students to understand the process of thinking and learning. Students gained understanding of the differences between the ways visually impaired students interact with information, learn and explore, and interpret non-visual input.

A primary goal for the installation of FabLabs in our SAInS partner schools was to provide a venue to support project-based applied learning, and practice with design and engineering processes. The SMA Kornita School devoted significant time and effort ensuring that all teachers and students in the school were trained to use the FabLab equipment, and gained practice developing instructional aids and creative products. The “Picture This!” project represents the organic outcome of training, mastery, and changes in school culture that encouraged the entire school community—parents as well as students and faculty—to envision not only educational but practical and socially beneficial uses of the technology.

A parent connected to the Kornita School, with experience in elementary school teaching, recognized a critical need in the blind community: the lack of picture books to support

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literacy in young children. For sighted children, reading often is introduced by way of colorful and inviting picture books that help kids link concepts to visual images and words on the page. This type of book is almost absent in the VI community; children learn to read Braille without connection to objects or tactile images. The parent knew that the Kornita School had a FabLab with a 3D printer and wondered if the tool could be used to create storybooks with raised images that VI children could feel while reading the Braille text. She contacted the Kornita School and the SAInS team and they agreed that such an initiative would be an excellent basis for project-based learning using the FabLab.

A visit to the largest public school for the visually impaired in Indonesia—the Sekolah Luar Biasa (Tuna Netra)1 or SLB,--confirmed that the only tactile books in the school library were painstakingly created by hand by teachers, expensive to make, and not readily reproducible.. The Principal of SLB was intrigued about the possible uses of a 3D printer for education, and enthusiastically supported creation of a tactile book as a proof of concept that might allow the school to get district funding to buy their own 3D printer.

In researching the design of Tactile Books, the Picture This! team (PTT—including the parent, SAInS staff, and Kornita faculty lead) discovered a Tactile Book project at the University of Colorado Boulder. Students there, and the center director, were eager to participate in an international collaboration and generously provided guidance on 3D modeling software options, how to structure and deliver the Tactile Book Workshop, and the specific design considerations of working with a VI audience.

In November 2015, 8 students from the Kornita School, and 10 students and faculty from SLB, as well as members of the SAInS program, met at the IPB STIR Center for a workshop to design a tactile book for young children. Introductory activities allowed sighted and blind participants to understand the design challenge, goals, and parameters, and to get accustomed to working with each other. The group first outlined the text of the story—a traditional Indonesian folktale entitled the Mousedeer and the Alligator—and laid out the text on 7 pages. The text on each page was parsed for the visual elements that ought to be represented using 3D images, and intensive discussions ensued regarding the point of view and orientation of the images (i.e. aerial vs. side view); how to represent landscape and horizon, and how to represent animals that VI students might never have encountered in real life or as models. Once the group had itemized the specific elements necessary—i.e. a profile view of the mousedeer, a palm tree, an aerial view of the alligator, etc—the rest of the workshop was devoted to creating physical models with clay. Throughout this process the VI students were full participants, providing input and making all final decisions in their role as clients. Thus they selected the point of view for all pages and evaluated all the clay models in terms of whether they were clear and recognizable to VI readers. VI students 1 School for Exceptional Children (Visually Impaired) in Jakarta.

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requested changes to the models, and a second round of modelling concluded the workshop with a final set of agreed -upon 3D models that would be recreated on computers and printed using the 3D printer.

In the interest of time, students at the University of Colorado agreed to create 3D images based on our clay models, and sent them to the Kornita School. The Kornita students adapted and refined the computer models, and created the full set of elements for each page, using Tinkercad software. Pak Ade, the faculty leader and FabLab manager at Kornita, oversaw the printing of the 3D models on the school’s 3D printer. The SLB participants printed out Braille pages of the text on transparent plastic, which would be overlaid upon regular ink-printed text so that sighted and VI readers can both share the book.

The physical design and layout of the book presented its own challenges, which students solved ingeniously. For example, because of the thickness of the 3D printed images, flat pages would not lie easily together in book format. Therefore, the students independently came up with the solution of creating inset frames for each page with the images and pages set inside. The frames would thus lie flat on top of each other. The pages were laid out carefully, with 3D printed images glued to the pages and set inside the frames.

This project was a source of great satisfaction for all involved, bringing together multiple stakeholders to work together applying technology and design skills to produce a product that would support education and joyful learning for children in their community. The

book will be formally presented to the SLB in May 2016. Figure 1. Students plan out the pages and visual elements for the storybook

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Figure 2. Students create clay models for evaluation

Figure 3. Visually impaired participants evaluate and give input for models

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Figure 4. Kornita students finalize the 3D computer models using Tinkercad

Figure 5. Kornita students design the book frames and structure

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Figure 6a. Kornita students lay out and build the book prototype

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Figure 6b. Kornita students lay out and build the book prototype

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Figure 7a: the Braille pages and printed text

Figure 7b: the Braille pages and printed text